A former Speaker of the House of Lords has revealed she witnessed a peer hop out of a running taxi, run into Parliament to claim a £300 daily allowance and leave again.

Baroness D'Souza refused to name the peer involved but complained about a lack of 'honour' from some members of the controversial House of Lords.

She admitted it demonstrated some of the more than 800 peers do 'absolutely nothing' for their taxpayer-funded allowances.

The claims, revealed in a new BBC documentary, were branded 'scandalous' today and will infuriate those who are demanding reform of the bloated Lords, which is the largest parliamentary chamber in any democracy.

Baroness Frances D'Souza, former Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, makes an address

Another senior Liberal Democrat peer described the Lords as the 'best day care centre for the elderly in London'.

Lord Tyler suggested many peers treat the Lords as a rest home.

Speaking to a BBC documentary, Meet the Lords, the senior Crossbencher Baroness D'Souza said: 'There is a core of peers who work incredibly hard, who do that work, and there are, sad to say, many, many, many peers who contribute absolutely nothing but who claim the full allowance.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

'I can remember one occasion when I was leaving the House quite late and there was a peer - who shall be utterly nameless - who jumped out of a taxi just outside the peers' entrance, left the engine running.

'He ran in, presumably to show that he'd attended, and then ran out again while the taxi was still running.

'So I mean that's not normal, but it is something that does happen and I think that we have lost the sense of honour that used to pertain, and that is a great, great shame.'

Peers are entitled to a tax-free attendance allowance worth £300 a day.

But there are no checks on what a peer does after signing in, meaning unscrupulous members are free to leave immediately.

The incident was branded 'scandalous' by the Electoral Reform Society and will fuel calls for the reform of the House of Lords, pictured yesterday during the Brexit bill debate

The Electoral Reform Society branded the episode 'scandalous'.

Chief executive Katie Ghose told the Mirror: 'This provides more evidence that we urgently need to move to a fully elected chamber.

'Let's fix this broken House before the situation gets any worse.

'We already knew some peers claim their £300 without speaking or voting, but to hear this from the former Lords Speaker herself is astonishing and shows just how severe this problem really is.

'Baroness D'Souza has exposed a truly scandalous situation. The public are sick to death of this kind of behaviour.'

He told the programme, which will be broadcast next Monday: 'It is the best day care centre for the elderly in London, families can drop in him or her and make sure that the staff will look after them very well nice meals subsidised by the taxpayer, and they can have a snooze in the afternoon in the chamber or in the library.'

Lord Tyler, pictured here in 2001, suggested many peers treat the Lords as a rest home

Lord Tebbit speaks during a tribute to Baroness Margaret Thatcher in the House of Lords in London

Former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit and Lord Blunkett criticised the appointments process, suggesting too many political cronies and donors have been appointed in recent years.

Lord David Blunkett speaks to press last year

Lord Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, said: 'You have got people who may well be, out of the patronage of the government of the day, rewarded for either keeping their mouth shut or opening their mouth or their purse at a particular moment in time.'

Lord Tebbit, a former Tory Party chairman, said: 'Far too many people have been put in here as a sort of personal reward.

'You wouldn't have imagined Mrs Thatcher wanting to give a peerage to Denis Thatcher's tailor or something like that.

'But we have come pretty close to that in recent years.'

Hereditary peer Lord Borwick, whose business interests include property development, acknowledged there was a 'difficult line to be trod' to avoid conflicts of interest, as he confirmed he was keen to amend planning laws to 'make planning simpler'.

At a preview screening of the show, Lord Speaker Lord Fowler acknowledged there were concerns about the size of the upper house, which has more than 800 members.

He said: 'The public and the press, as I know to my cost, regularly mock the size of the House, over 800, second only in size to the Chinese people's congress and all that.